Binance Labs and Animoca Brands are joining Highstreet as official strategic partners in the creation of a radically original metaverse.

VANCOUVER, OCTOBER 14, 2021 — Highstreet has raised a second seed investment led by Binance Labs and Animoca Brands to supercharge its commerce-focused metaverse. 

Highstreet is creating the first-ever metaverse marketplace, where physical products are traded as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in a fully open phygital experience. The marketplace runs on the Ethereum blockchain and is built for high-end brands to launch limited edition products. Highstreet ensures liquidity for all buyers by pricing products based on a bonding curve, bringing decentralized finance (DeFi) concepts to the world of luxury goods and collectibles, guaranteeing fair and transparent transactions.

As part of this strategic investment, Highstreet is building Binance Beach in its metaverse marketplace to bridge the world’s largest crypto exchange by trade volume with an interactive and vivid environment, where community members can access exclusive drops from globally renowned brands.

By integrating functionalities built on Binance Smart Chain, Highstreet will demonstrate new ways of presenting DeFi applications in a metaverse scenario, where any brand or platform can extend its services to its users while offering a friendly experience for the DeFi community.

Brad Lim, investment director of Binance Labs, said, “We are looking forward to witnessing the new kind of metaverse that Highstreet is creating. Additionally, Highstreet will integrate with the Binance NFT Marketplace, Binance’s portal for buying and selling all forms of digital artworks and collectibles as nonfungible tokens.”

Animoca Brands is a global leader in blockchain gaming and NFTs, and its partnership with Highstreet will expand its presence and reach in the metaverse by bringing a number of its renowned brands into the Highstreet world.

Users with assets in several Animoca Brands projects will be able to cross over to the Highstreet metaverse with added utilities including Genopets which will allow users to bring items out of the metaverse and into the real world as users move-to-earn. ChainGuardian RoboFomo, which debuted at the Digital Art Fair Asia, will join the Highstreet City Police Force and Vera, which will power in-game mortgages for virtual real estate in Highstreet.

Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said, “Blockchain and NFTs enable us to own virtual land and goods, be employed in online worlds, own our private data and take control of our digital lives. We are excited to support Highstreet, which is making the benefits and opportunities of Web 3.0 and the open metaverse available to a wider audience.” 

Highstreet CEO and co-founder Travis Wu said, “This round is all about bringing things together. Whether it’s the hundreds of thousands of new crypto users that land on Binance every day, or the brands, games and tools that have prospered under the Animoca Umbrella, the metaverse is a place that belongs to everyone.”

This strategic round takes place on the heels of Highstreet’s flagship initial DEX offering (IDO) on Polkastarter and Impossible Finance. Earlier, Highstreet also launched an NFT series based on its mascot, FOMO Duck. 

Highstreet is backed by recognizable companies like HTC. The project recently established a partnership with Solv to explore the potential of deploying vouchers as financial NFTs. It has also collaborated with Tafi to enable cutting-edge character creation in Highstreet’s immersive metaverse framework. 

About Binance Labs

Binance Labs is an infrastructure impact fund and an initiative launched by Binance to incubate, invest in and empower blockchain and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, projects and communities. The mission of Binance Labs is to solve the problems that matter most to the ecosystem and change the world for the better. For more information, please visit labs.binance.com.

About Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands, ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021, is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain and gamification. Animoca Brands develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products and original games and products utilizing popular intellectual properties. Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 100 investments in some of the world’s most meaningful NFT-related companies. For more information, visit www.animocabrands.com.

About Highstreet

Highstreet creates the Shopify experience in an MMORPG for brands while delivering the ultimate metaverse experience for players. Inspired by classics from Nintendo and Sega, encouraged by our team’s shared addiction in MapleStory and World of Warcraft and finally consolidated by our core team’s six years of experience serving retail customers with mixed reality, Highstreet presents a true implementable roadmap to a world like those in Ready Player One and Sword Art Online.

Website: https://www.highstreet.market 

Medium: https://medium.com/highstreet-market 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/highstreetworld 

Telegram: https://t.me/highstreetworld 

Media contact for brands: [email protected]

General inquiries: [email protected]